Meeting the Bishop

My meeting with Bishop Greg, as I have said, went well, and I wanted to tell a little more of what it was like.  Greg is a very warm and welcoming person, and it was easy to feel at home in his office.  This was some comfort after the prolonged torture of waiting in my anxious state for the meeting to start!  As I said before, he had no trouble getting right to the point of our meeting, and he went over his list of priorities for Ordained Leaders with me (it's available on his blog).  I was comforted and impressed by his clarity of vision and willingness to be so straightforward in his expression of it.
Coming from such a different background, I asked first what he meant by "Spiritually Grounded and Christ-Centered." A phrase such as this in my past would have been pretty ambiguous at best and generally defined by the views of whoever happened to be saying it.  Greg tackled the inherent ambiguities head-on.  Instead of having a ready definition, he stated that this was simply his first priority and he was unwilling to let it go by the wayside.  Regardless of how we may come to define these terms, he wants to be sure that we are always in discussion about them and maintaining their centrality in church life.
Stewardship was another subject on which we spent some time.  I've had a chip on my shoulder about the way the church talks about money this year.  Having to miss some work last Nov - Jan really put me on a small foothold for the rest of the year, and I've been very aware of all the messages coming from the church in that regard.  We have a real  tendency to talk out of both sides of our mouths on this one, always claiming that stewardship is not about money and then turning right around to strategize ways to increase giving.  Once again, Greg put it back in the realm of priorities, telling me that most people in the church would agree with my assessment, and then nothing would happen.  Fair enough.  So this is another conversation he wants to keep at the forefront.
About this time in our conversation, Caedmon, my 4-year-old, discovered Greg's office window and happily pressed his nose against it, making for a nice segue to other conversations.  We talked for a time about seminary and about what I envision for my future vocation.  I'll spend some more time on these later...